Nigeria’s ‘guns for cows’ deal backfires as bandits see profit in kidnapping

‘No matter what the government says, there are ransoms paid and kidnappings have become lucrative’

‘Amnesties encourage gangs to commit such crimes, because there is a total absence of sanction’

AS A gangster, arms dealer and kidnapper extraordinaire, Awwalun Daudawa looked like a character beyond reform. Last December, he masterminded one of Nigeria’s biggest-ever school kidnappings, abducting more than 300 boys in Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari.

A week later, the boys were freed, amid rumours Daudawa had been paid a hefty ransom. But having carried out the kidnapping on the president’s home turf, many expected him to then be hunted down with a vengeance.

Instead, last month, he took advantage of a controversial “guns for cows” amnesty scheme, handing his weapons in to officials in nearby Zamfara state and pledging to renounce violence.

“I am a changed person now and my plan is to go back to school and become a normal person,” he declared to local journalists, as he and four fellow bandits swore a public oath on the Koran.

The amnesty is one of several rolled out recently across north-west Nigeria, with local governors arguing that they are the only way to stem a wave of banditry that has seen 8,000 people killed and kidnapped in the past decade.

But critics claim they are emboldening bandits. A fortnight after Daudawa vowed to mend his ways, gunmen kidnapped 279 schoolgirls from a boarding school in Jangebe, also in Zamfara state.

The hostages were released last Tuesday, with Bello Matawalle, Zamfara’s governor, saying that he “thanked Allah” for their freedom. Once again, though, many believe it was not the hand of God, but the handover of money, that secured the girls’ liberty.

“No matter what the government says, there are ransoms that are paid and these kidnappings have become lucrative,” said Yan St Pierre, of the Berlin-based Modern Security Consulting Group, which operates in Nigeria.

He said amnesties “only encourage gangs to commit such crimes, because there is a total absence of sanction”.

The spate of school kidnappings – 27 students were also taken from a school in Niger state last month – has echoes of

the Chibok kidnapping of 2014, when 276 girls were abducted by Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group.

Ransom of around three million euros bought the freedom of about 100 of the Chibok girls, which some say alerted other Nigerian armed groups to the rewards of kidnapping.

While Boko Haram operates mainly in north-east Nigeria, recent kidnappings have been in the north-west, with the finger of blame pointed mainly at bandit groups and nomadic Fulani herdsmen. Many Fulani have turned to crime in recent years, claiming that shrinking supplies of grazing land have made an honest living impossible.

Daudawa, 43, is a former cattle thief who is said to have diversified into arms dealing, supplying weapons from Libya to criminals and jihadists.

In the “guns for cows” deals, militants are offered three head of cattle for every weapon that they hand in when they surrender.

Zamfara’s governor has defended the amnesties, saying the violence was even worse before they were enacted.

“Those who willingly surrender their arms will be pardoned, but those who say they will not surrender their arms will continue to be hunted by the military,” Mr Matawelle’s spokesman told Nigeria’s Punch newspaper last month.

Sceptics, though, doubt whether the likes of Daudawa are serious about returning to the classroom, pointing out that “peace deals” in neighbouring states have often faltered.

In late 2019, Aminu Bello Masari, the governor of Katsina state, visited local bandits’ forest hideouts to strike peace deals. He insisted the talks were to end the “incessant wanton destruction of lives and property”, and that many of the gunmen were ordinary Fulanis who had suffered police harassment.

But Mr Masari now regrets starting his peace program – which he cancelled last year after attacks continued.

“In the forest, a lion kills only when it is hungry,” he said. “But here, the bandits come to town, spray bullets, and kill indiscriminately for no purpose. For me, there are no longer innocent persons in the forests.”